Tuesday, August 25, 2009

AWW Polenta Bake.

I've been meaning to start veganising recipes from the Australian Women's Weekly for a while. Some of their recipes are incidentally vegan or easily veganised by the replacement of dairy milks/butters for other less abusive products and some of their recipes depend on meat or eggs as integral players. So be it a little lazy on my part for choosing this recipe, its just so good looking and I hadn't used polenta for quite some time. The major adjustment made was with cheeses and milk as well as completely halving the recipe as I didn't have a whole litre of milk to spare, and my "lamington" tray is small.

INGREDIENTS (with my adjustments and substitutions)2 cups vegetable stock (I use Massel, and had run out of their really good Chicken stock but would use that if I had it)2 cups soy milkpinch of sea salt1 cup polenta⅓ cup grated cheezly mozzarella1 tablespoon nutritional yeast⅓ cup Napoli pasta sauce (we have this around the house sometimes, its a generic mix of tomatoes, tomato paste, and miscellaneous herbs and spices. you could use whatever you see fit, a white sauce or pesto would be nice, or a fresh passata with herbs. as you like!)6 thin slices of cheezly mozzarella6 seeded black olives, halvedpinch chopped fresh oregano, optionalflat-leaf parsley leaves, for serving, optional

Combine stock, milk and salt in a large saucepan; bring to the boil. Gradually sprinkle the polenta over the stock mixture, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, making sure the polenta has no lumps.Reduce the heat to low and partially cover the saucepan. Continue cooking, stirring occasionally, for about 30 minutes or until polenta is very thick and a spoon can stand upright in the centre. Remove from heat, stir in the grated cheeze and nutritional yeast.

Spread polenta into prepared pan. Stand for about 5 minutes. Spread tomato sauce over polenta, top with mozzarella slices and place an olive half in the centre of each mozzarella slice. Sprinkle with oregano.Bake, uncovered, for about 45 minutes or until cheeze is melted.

Let sit for about 5 minutes or until the polenta is firm to touch and easily cut. Cut polenta into squares; sprinkle with parsley, if desired.

Delicious, warming and I have no idea why some people hate polenta. Its such wholesome niceness.

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Been really busy managing a a Chinese Restaurant in Capalaba area and I find it hard to whip something up in the home but this looks fairly easy to prepare and I would love to try this one out, on the weekend maybe! Thanks, I love polenta :)